Reborn with a Necromancer System
Chapter 149: Escaping the Knights

Chapter 149: Escaping the Knights

When they reached the outer wall, Kai led the sisters to a disused crawlspace beneath the stables. It was narrow—Kleo had to carry Firra on her back, and Kai had to dig his fingers into the dirt at times to force collapsed wood out of the way. The wood groaned like it remembered being alive.

On the other side, they emerged into the palace grounds near a forgotten garden, long abandoned and swallowed by time.

Moonlight spilled over crumbling hedges and drowned fountains. The flowers, once regal and manicured, had gone feral. It was thick vines choked the rose beds, twisting around the legs of marble nymphs with moss-eaten faces. The statues wept green streaks, their gazes lost in mourning.

It was the kind of place that felt like the world had stopped breathing.

"This place..." Kleo whispered, glancing over her shoulder. "We’re not supposed to be here."

"I know," Kai said. "That’s why we’re safe."

The last king’s affair with a servant had ended in scandal—and tragedy. She’d taken her own life here after being promised marriage and discarded. Another servant followed weeks later. Since then, rumors of a curse kept all but the most reckless from stepping into the overgrown tomb of memory. Kai felt the air change just being here—thicker, somehow. Like the garden didn’t want them to leave.

Firra, barely conscious, stirred.

"Not here..." she murmured, her voice barely more than breath. "Don’t leave me here..."

"You’re not staying," Kai said softly, pressing a hand to her shoulder. "You’re going home."

’Wherever home might be for you. With your mother, perhaps. Maybe another city or even another province.’

They moved quickly, their path guided by cracks in the stonework and patches of moonlight that filtered through the overgrowth like fractured glass. A forgotten archway at the far edge of the garden led to a servant’s corridor, and from there, Kai led them through a series of narrow alleys that skirted the edge of the noble quarter.

Eventually, after weaving through half-collapsed sheds and scaling two low walls, they made it to the edge of the district. The cobbled street ahead gleamed wet from the night mist. Lanterns glowed from tall black posts. And just beyond it, the Eldridge estate’s spires peeked above the roofs.

"We’ll need to separate here," Kai said, keeping his voice low. "Kleo, take her to the Eldridge estate. It’s the second-last building on the left down the main road."

"Eldridge estate?" she asked, her brow furrowed.

"Naia lives there," Kai said. "She’s someone I can trust. If you tell her I sent you, she will protect you. Firra will be safe there."

Kleo shifted Firra’s weight in her arms. Her face was tired, streaked with dirt and dried sweat, but her eyes still burned with refusal.

"Well, I’m not leaving without you."

"You must," Kai said. "You’re slower with her weight, and if you’re caught—"

"I said I’m not leaving," she snapped. Her voice was steel, but her lip quivered. "You saved her. I’m not going to let you throw yourself away now."

Kai’s jaw clenched. He didn’t want to do it. But he didn’t have time to argue.

"Kleo," he said, his voice hardening, "I command you to take your sister to the Eldridge estate."

Her eyes widened. The words hit her like a slap. Her bond to him—the one neither of them liked to speak of—activated, pressing invisible pressure against her will. She staggered, blinking through tears, and nodded stiffly. With trembling arms, she lifted Firra’s weight more securely and turned toward the gate that led out of the district.

Before leaving, she pulled a small pouch from her belt, unlatched it, and threw it near the western gate that bordered the Citadel. It burst with a hiss and then a plume of thick grey smoke. One of the guards cursed and moved to inspect it, waving the smoke away with his halberd.

In that instant, Kleo darted through the opened side gate and melted into the shadows of the main road. Kai lingered for just a second longer, watching them disappear.

He turned.

Then sprinted.

Back toward the merchant’s quarter.

Let them see him. Let them chase him. Let the story burn into the minds of the palace guard: a lone figure in black, disappearing into the alleys like smoke in a storm.

He vaulted onto a vendor’s awning and scrambled to the rooftops, wind tearing at his coat. The city sprawled below him like a map of secrets. Lanterns flickered, footsteps echoed, and alarms had begun to ring in distant quarters. He could feel the panic beginning to spread like blood from a fresh wound.

He drew a sharp breath and flung a blast of air down one alley. The force knocked over a stacked fruit cart, sending bright oranges rolling across the cobblestones. Down another alley, he conjured fog from both flame and frost, mixing elemental contradiction into confusion and spectacle.

"Check over there!" someone shouted.

He used intricate illusion magic on three smaller versions of Shade to look like him running through three different intersections at the end of an alley.

"There’s two of him! No, three!"

Perfect.

’But still... I killed the king?’

The thought landed again, heavier now. More solid. He hadn’t stabbed him. He hadn’t burned him. But he’d broken the only thing keeping the man alive.

The collar.

The siphon.

The lie.

’If anything, he killed himself by relying on others to keep him alive like that. Against their will.’

Still. The thought clung to his mind like oil.

And yet... something stirred beneath the guilt.

Not sorrow.

Not regret.

Something older.

Something fiercer.

He felt alive.

The way his heart raced. The way the world responded to his hands. The truth of it all was clear now:

He could change the world with a single act. With his act.

He had power. Power enough to end kings. To unseat tyrants. To rewrite the rules, if he wished.

He was no longer a student.

No longer a fugitive.

He was something else entirely.

A king killer.

"I need to get back to the girls. All of this will be for nothing if they’re found and killed. I put so much into this, and having them die..."

Kai shook the thoughts from his mind as he raced back towards the nobles’ quarter by the palace. Guards still buzzed around in numbers, but were less ordered and much more chaotic than before.

’I guess they weren’t prepared to try and find someone who killed their king last night. Maybe they’ll have better security measures from now on.’

---

By the time Kai reached the Eldridge estate, the city was waking.

Vendors were setting up their stalls. Smoke curled from chimney tops. Lanterns were snuffed one by one, and the guards no longer scoured the alleys for him—they’d redirected, confused by too many sightings in too many places. Exactly as he’d planned.

He approached the estate from the west, scaling the back wall and slipping through the garden hedge. The mansion’s servants were stirring, moving quietly through side doors and across gravel paths.

Kai entered through the attic window he usually used and stepped lightly down the hall, cloak damp from mist, hair plastered to his forehead. His body ached—not from injury, but from sheer strain. He’d burned more magic in a single night than in some entire weeks.

But none of that mattered.

Firra was safe. His promise to Kleo was fulfilled. Now, he could focus on the tournament, the Devourer, and healing Vepice.

And he couldn’t forget about his agreement with Carter to find a way to restore Aliza to life, since that was what could lead him to resurrecting his parents.

Garrett and Lila deserved better lives, and it was his fault that they couldn’t.

After a pang of sadness came and went, he descended the service stairs and paused outside Naia’s room.

He didn’t have to knock. The door was already open.

Naia stood in the center of her room, arms crossed, eyes like sharpened glass. Behind her, sitting on the edge of the bed, was Kleo—her cheeks hollow with exhaustion but alert. Firra lay curled beneath a thick quilt, pale but warm, her breathing shallow but steady.

"You brought fugitives into my home," Naia said quietly.

"I did," Kai said. "Because I had no other choice.. It was now or never, or she could have died."

"Enough with the excuses. You always have a choice."

"I chose to save her," he replied, nodding at Firra. "And I trusted you to help me do that."

Firra stirred in her sleep and muttered something unintelligible.

Naia scoffed and turned away, her long braid swinging behind her. "You trusted me, huh? Because you didn’t say a damn thing about it until she was already in my bed."

Kleo watched them carefully, tension thick in her posture. Either out of gratitude or wariness, she didn’t speak.

Kai stepped into the room and gently shut the door.

"I can explain everything to you. Just give me a chance..."

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